The Boehm family

There’s a good reason why Attorney General Koster has not taken any action against serial mortgage abuser Bank of America. He is waiting for a report. One of his lieutenants is in charge of getting interviews from everyone who has listed a complaint on the AG site. Currently that is 152 Missouri homeowners. When I mentioned all this to Mary Boehm more than two weeks ago, she chuckled. “Right. Well, they haven’t gotten to us yet.” But within a couple of days, bingo, she got a call from the AG’s office. The investigator wasn’t calling to set up an interview, but he did offer concrete information. Here’s how Mary described it in an e-mail:

An investigator from the AG’s office called me two weeks ago. He was very nice and said he was calling to let me know that the AG was investigating all the banks and their possible fraudulent behavior, but that it was a very time-consuming process. He said he would be calling us back to get our statement soon. He also said that the AG was investigating this crisis along two lines:

1. The banks telling people to make modified payments while they were “processing” modifications and then suddenly trying to foreclose on them.

2. The banks refusing to give customers their loan documentation proving who holds the note (most likely because no one knows where the notes are).

He told us that we were one of the few complainants who were in both situations. He also said we might be called as witnesses. Lucky us!

When I called and asked Mary if the “lucky us!” was sincere, she laughed and told me it was and it wasn’t. Yes, she and Mike would relish a chance to turn the tables on their tormentors. On the other hand, it’s one more way to assure that the nightmare drags on.

And yet, even on the mortgage modification front, the Boehms are finally getting some traction. Here’s more of her e-mail:

Big news: We paid BOA on 2/11 the amount Stephanie Caruso gave us in writing to come current, which we agreed with (no fees!) and she also put in writing that BOA would fix our credit. (Caruso is in Customer Relations at the Office of the CEO and President.) We will have to wait 90 days for our credit reports to be updated, and by then interest rates will probably be too high for refinancing our loan to be helpful, but we thought this nightmare was finally over!

But then Bad for America reverted to type:

Of course, on Monday, 2/14, I got another collection call from BOA! When I told the woman that we had paid up on Friday, she said that we still owed $830 more and that our Notice of Intent to Accelerate had expired on Dec. 26. (I guess this was a threat to frighten me into paying.) When I told her that we were working with someone from the Office of the CEO and President, she said there were no codes in our file stating that we were working with that department. I said a bad word and hung up on her.

Then Mike left an angry message on Stephanie Caruso’s voicemail complaining. She called back and left a message stating that she was sorry that happened, that it SHOULDN’T have happened, and that we really WERE paid up and current through Feb. 28. To top this off, she said she was putting a “hold” on our phone number which means that we won’t get any more calls from BOA. Unfortunately, she said, that also means that SHE can’t call us anymore either. So if we need to talk to her, we have to reach her in person, because she won’t be able to return any calls. RIGHT! Can you believe that this is real?! This is world-class customer service? It sounds to me like a great excuse for not talking to us anymore. I am beginning to believe that this will NEVER really be over.

Bank of America doesn’t ever believe in doing things the classy way. There will be more teeth grinding glitches for the Boehms. But it looks like they might be among the lucky ones.

Surely he’s not that foolish.

But the word I get is that AG Koster is still leaning toward doing it. If it’s true, this puzzles me for a couple of reasons. The first is that he claims he’s being nonpartisan. He stressed the fact that the legislature, by passing SR27, and the voters, by passing Prop C, have told him what they expect someone nonpartisan to do.

That sounds reasonable at first glance, but one might just as easily argue that SR27 was an attempt to bully him into becoming partisan. Whether or not you agree with the word “bully”, this much is indisputable: joining that suit would be highly partisan. He would not be representing Missouri, because many Missourians are grateful to no longer worry that a pre-existing condition, a lifetime cap, or job loss might rob them of health insurance. Joining the suit would mean that he doesn’t represent that half of the state.

The second reason I’m puzzled is that he’s too savvy not to know that the second he signs on to that suit, the Democrats who are going to care enough to vote in the 2012 primary will despise him. I don’t know if Margaret Donnelly or Jeff Harris would be up for a rematch, but as long as only ONE of them took him on, she or he would stand a good chance–because Democratic voters would remember Koster’s perfidy and punish him. Every activist in the state would work to paste a sign saying “Koster the Imposter” over that winning smile.

Attorney General Chris Koster needs to butt out of this politically charged, partisan issue and concern himself with the stated duties of his office.

Update: St. Louis Activist Hub has a fine piece on the subject of Koster’s future, should he join the lawsuit. Adam takes my thinking one step further and notes that even if Koster were to win the primary, he’d lose the general because neither side would have much to do with him. Our Attorney General needs to focus on the road ahead before he drops an axle into a pothole the size of Audrain County.

Attorney General Chris Koster seems to be leaning toward joining Missouri’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health insurance mandate.

Acknowledging the will of the state legislature, a vote by the people, and his fiduciary duty, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster inched closer to challenging the constitutionality of the federal health care law.

“We haven’t finally formulated what the plans are,” said Koster, following a question by Missouri Watchdog about his plans regarding the health care law during a press conference Tuesday in St. Louis.

Koster said his office is likely to do “something that recognizes the will of the legislature and recognizes that Missouri state law has now adopted” Proposition C, a legislatively-referred state statute, which challenges the federal health insurance mandate, passed by voters in August.

“Our office has a fiduciary duty to defend Missouri law. What we do, how we do it, is something that we are actively reviewing,” he said. “There’s a lot of subtleties and research that has to be gone through.”

We don’t know whether Koster thinks the mandate is sensible or constitutional. What we do know is that he’s caught in the middle on this one, and the lawyer in him argues that as the holder of a nonpartisan office, the general counsel to the state government, he is bound to pay attention to what the legislature and our laws require or urge him to do. Proposition C sought to have Missouri opt out of the insurance mandate. To that has been added the weight of SR27, urging him to join the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

I had hinted that Koster might not feel bound to join the lawsuit even if it passed:

My hope is that they [the senators] will act very judiciously. … And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

Republicans passed it, but only 10 of the 26 Rs in the Senate even stayed for the vote. So we have 10 out of 33 senators resoundingly in favor of SR27. That’s less than a third.  

But I was too optimistic. Apparently his statement only meant: Maybe the Republicans will be judicious enough not to pass SR27.

I was similarly naive to think that Koster might not feel bound by the Prop C vote. Bunnie Gronborg, a St. Louis health care activist testified at the hearing last Tuesday. She told the committee, and after the hearing told Koster, that the turnout was so meager last August that, although the vote was almost 3 to 1 in favor of Prop C, the stats show that those voting for it constituted only 16 percent of Missouri voters. As someone who had done a lot of phone banking before the primaries, she knew that more than a few Democrats were confused about the wording of Prop C because she spent time explaining to many of them that if they favored reform they’d want to vote no.

Here’s what she said about her exchange with Koster:

Now when I told that to the Attorney General, he pointed out in a nice way that those people bothered to show up and vote or something like that. I know he has a point, but mine was that you don’t pander to 16%.

I’m certainly no expert on Missouri constitutional law. And I do understand Koster’s point about the nonpartisan role of an attorney general. But I also know that the legislation passed last Wednesday was a nonbinding resolution. You know, nonbinding, as in nonbinding. It’s a strong request–made by ten Republican senators.

Koster fears, perhaps rightly, that Republicans will yank the purse strings closed on his office if he ignores them. That could happen, I guess. But here’s something else that’s almost sure to happen. Democrats are going to be royally pissed off if he does this.

Many of them already refer to him as Koster the Imposter.

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d want the federal government to protect citizens against rapacious health insurance companies. That’s one of the roles of good government. But I don’t for sure know that Koster sees the issue that way, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful. Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d want the federal government to protect citizens against rapacious health insurance companies. That’s one of the roles of good government. But I don’t know for sure know that Koster sees the issue that way, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful. Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d want the federal government to protect citizens against rapacious health insurance companies. That’s one of the roles of good government. But I don’t know for sure know that Koster sees the issue that way, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful. Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d want the federal government to protect citizens against rapacious health insurance companies. That’s one of the roles of good government. But I don’t know for sure know that Koster sees the issue that way, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful. Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d favor health care reform, but I don’t know that he would for sure, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful. Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs.  Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d favor health care reform, but I don’t know that he would for sure, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful.   Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?

On a party line vote Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Rules Committee sent a nonbinding resolution to the full Senate urging Attorney General Chris Koster to join their lawsuit declaring that the federal government has no right to penalize people or businesses for not having health insurance. The hearing was meant to be quick and dirty, with no public input, just getting the thing out of committee, so that the most adamant of the Republican senators could paint their faces white and do a little kabuki on the Senate floor. (Which they did on Wednesday, handily passing the resolution.)

As it turned out, though, the Tuesday hearing was not quick and dirty. Sixty activists who had gotten wind of the hearing showed up to testify against it. Afterwards several of them talked to its target, Attorney General Chris Koster, because they had gotten wind that he is considering doing as the resolution urges and joining the lawsuit against the federal government. Here’s what he told them:

Welcome, and I appreciate your interest in this. It is, as you know … we have… this office has tried to maintain a nonpolitical posture with regard to this going forth. The reality is we have had aggressive lobbying on behalf of the proponents of health care. The White House has asked us to become involved and to sign amicus briefs at various points. And we’ve stayed out of that and said no to proponents. We’ve also said no to opponents of this. We’ve had many groups such as yours who feel opposite on this matter from your own advocacy who’ve come and implored us to get involved.

Our view is, as you may know, I’ve come out of the legislature. I was over there on the Senate side four years. We’ve tried to run this organization here in a very nonpartisan way. If a Democratic officeholder makes a request, a research request or whatnot, we jump to it. If a Republican asks us for assistance, we try and give both sides of the political aisle absolutely the same deference and energy and courtesy.

We have not asked for this to come to our door–it is being brought to our door by the General Assembly–and have resisted politicizing this issue over the past twelve, well eleven months now. (I think it passed in February of ’10.) That having been said, I do have a constitutional obligation to act as general counsel for the government. No matter what my personal views on an issue are, that if the General Assembly makes a request that I have to be cognizant of it and take it seriously. A lawyer that does not listen to his clients’ requests, you know, is probably not … that lawyer is not fully cognizant of what his duties are. I do have that role.

This job, the people of this state do not want a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican as Attorney General. They just don’t. They want just sort of a standard cop as AG, someone who’s just going to call the facts as they are. So if the General Assembly makes a request, I have to at least acknowledge that the organization that speaks on behalf of people of the state–and who holds the budget for this office and can snap off the oxygen to this office very quickly and there’s no one over there who can stop it–I have to at least be cognizant of what is going on over there.

My hope is that they will act very judiciously. I don’t know … my sense is that a few minutes ago they passed it out of committee. Is that right? And so we’re going to wait and see what they do on the floor. I think that, my belief is that, this is not unanimous within the full Republican caucus, that there are Republicans who don’t think that this the right time to pass such a resolution. And so we’re waiting to see what happens.

But I want you to know that I’m very cognizant of your voice in this as well. I’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens on both sides of this issue, lots and lots of input. And we are listening. And that is, I think, at the end of the day, my job. I have to listen.

I get Koster’s point that as the AG he’s supposed to act in a nonpartisan manner, offering equal courtesy and research services, for example, to elected officials from each party. I also get it that he didn’t ask to get embroiled in this. He’s stuck in the middle. And he’d be remiss, as general counsel for the government, if he didn’t take seriously a resolution from government officials urging action on his part. Furthermore, I’m not silly enough to tell him not to worry about budgetary reprisals if he ignores the resolution.

I’d like to think that, given his druthers, he’d favor health care reform, but I don’t know that he would for sure, especially considering his recent allegiance to the other party. All I can say is that if he’s looking for a way to keep this cup from passing to him, he should be investigating the costs of the suit. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfied), the sponsor of the resolution, claimed it would not cost the state anything. I don’t mean to be cynical, but Republicans have been known to be less than truthful.  Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City) was skeptical:

“I’m going to have to do some of my own checking, because I find it absolutely unfathomable that Missouri could get involved in a federal lawsuit and it wouldn’t cost us a penny,” Justus said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

The other way out for Koster, and this is the one he mentioned to activists on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans might not be unified on this question anyway. I get the sense that if he gets the sense that the entire Senate won’t be up in arms if he refuses, then … maybe he’ll refuse.

So the 64 dollar question is, how did the vote go on Wednesday? Yes, it passed, but not to resounding huzzahs. Missourinet describes the voice vote this way:

Only about ten voices were heard voting “aye” in the senate…Three voices were heard saying “no”   Most of the members had left the chamber before the vote was taken. The Senate has 33 members.

Okay, so ten of the 26 Republicans in the Senate bothered to vote. I hear their attitude loud and clear. How about you, Mister Koster?